I hate being broke.

[kandrathe]

Crap. There's a little independent computer shop about four blocks from my house, and I had a flyer with their different "basic setups", but I seem to have lost it. I remember the owner saying he was always revising his setups to use new hardware (probably not bleeding-edge, but nice stuff, anyway), and that the top-end model was about $2,000 for a 3ghz P4, with 768mb RAM and a GF4. Plus a DVD/CD-RW, 250gb HD, peripherals and such. I don't remember whether they came packaged with monitors (which would be nice because mine is kind of old). The basic model was about $700 I think. That was a few months ago though, so I don't know if anything's changed since then.

That's not exactly cheap (I could probably get a Dell or something better than my current one for $500, but I have this pathological fear of big pre-fab computer companies), but he also offers a 3-year warranty, with free tech support and part replacement for the first year, which seemed awful nice to me.

I would buy local. I like having a corner grocery store, and a gas station within a few blocks of my house, so I try to always buy local. I came to that realization after our local gas station went out of business for a while, so now I try only to buy my gas there. So, anyway the guy seems to be trying to be competitive and offer great service. Just my two cents.

When I was in college I was always short on cash. I was always looking around for ways to make a little green. I ended up making the most money doing short odd jobs for people. I would just explain my situation and ask them if they needed anything done. I ended up doing everything from fixing peoples cars to, cleaning, and lawn work, to programming small apps or setting up databases, to reroofing a garage. People are usually pretty eager to give you a break when you are forthright and hard working.